


Satellite of Love: Tea “and” Coffee Shop

by Paycheckgurl



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-27 06:59:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12075894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paycheckgurl/pseuds/Paycheckgurl
Summary: Jonah Heston just wants to make it through his part time job at a quirky space themed coffee shop. If only the owners didn't insist on micromanaging operations.





	1. Chapter 1

The non-distinct, faux-indie, chick with guitar music blared across the Satellite of Love: Tea “and” Coffee Shop as Jonah Heston absentmindedly drummed against the counter. Yes, blared was a good word for the music was doing, and nondescript for its crushingly lame blandness. His managers, Joel and Mike, were both music junkies with a wide array of tastes not unlike Jonah himself, meaning that the music had probably been another Forrester demand. The Forrester family, who owned, but hadn’t previously directly been involved in the day to day runnings of the wayward little coffee shop, had been making changes recently. Jonah knew he wouldn’t be surprised if the quirky name and oddball space theming were next on the chopping block in the misguided attempt to compete with the Starbucks that had moved in down the street. Hell, he was pretty sure he got hired in the first place because in the Forresters thought he checked enough of the part time barista, full time grad-student cliches to appeal to his classmates when they made their way over. Which yeah, to be fair, he totally had the beard and the glasses going for him. 

In the back the cappuccino machine whirred and made strange noises. He made a mental note to tell Joel about that once he got back from his break, either so he could fix it or put back whatever part he’d “borrowed” from it for one of his invention prototypes in a fit of inspiration. Joel was a tinker and on the one hand Jonah greatly admired the nonlinear way in which Joel’s brain seemed to come up with crazy gizmos and ideas, his own goal as an aerospace engineering student was to come up half the creative mechanical ideas Joel could. On the other hand, Joel was hardly a model coffee shop employee or even a coffee connoisseur, and a coffee shop managed by someone that looked like they were ready to keel over and fall asleep on the counter at any given time was a hard sell. Not that Jonah blamed him; prototyping random inventions was freelance work, and unsteady freelance work at that. Joel was a single dad with four mouths to feed, and the coffee shop (at least for now) was a pretty steady gig, lack of passion for it or not. 

As the machine to continued to fight with the faux-indie whining about rain or dating or something for recognition of the loudest noise in the room, the door forcibly swung open as a tiny redhead marched her way up to the counter like she owned the place. Which, in a way she did. Or would one day. Kinga Forrester, the youngest of the Forrester clan, was a force to be reckoned with.

“What’ll be?” he asked with a big smile.

She rolled her eyes, but a small half smile of her own betrayed the fact that she at least appreciated Jonah’s enthusiasm. 

“Same as always, Heston. Caramel macchiato, Sugar-Free, 20 oz, Skim, Extra Shot, Extra-Hot, Extra-Whip, ”

Jonah wondered if Kinga's order containing the word "extra" so much was some weird kind of self awareness about how the adjective could describe her personality, or an ironic lack of awareness on the subject. 

“Coming right up,”

And sure it was probably the single most obnoxious coffee order in existence (with the exception of rainbow colored whatever concoctions people only ordered to put on Instagram), but hey at least he had something to do now other than listen to…

“That music. Ugh what it is?” she complained, weirdly in time with his thoughts. “And that  _ sound _ .”

“I’m not in charge of the music so I don’t have a clue, although there’s no way Mike picked this out. Joel either,” he said. “The sound is just the cappuccino machine. It was working fine earlier, it’s just loud.” 

“How am I supposed to mount my campaign to dominate the coffee house industry if this is what my flagship base of operations is running like?”

Jonah winced. He wasn't the one that was going to get in trouble for this if her delusions of grandeur compelled her to go and tattle about the current state of operations to her dad, or worse  _ her grandmother,  _ and neither Joel or Mike could afford another mark against them right now. Mike, unlike Joel, actually wasn't an immune zombie to coffee, and really loved tea, so the customers genuinely enjoyed interacting with him for recommendations. But he was also notoriously clumsy and had spilled one too many cups of hot coffee for the Forresters’ liking and was constantly on thin ice with them. Weirdly though, that wasn’t where Kinga seemed to be going with this. 

“If I'm going to mount my campaign of coffee shop dominance and become the Queen of All Coffee, I’m going to need to start making strategic decisions. And I've got a solution...to one of these problems. My friend Terry’s got a band. If we need something to act as nondescript mood music he'll have us covered with the CD they just recorded.”

“Okay,” said Jonah carefully. “Just if the current music was an order from your dad or your grandma tell them changing it was your idea, okay?” 

“Don't worry, dad loves that I'm ambitious, he’ll love this. And we can sell Terry’s album too on the table there for extra income. It's a win-win.” 

Jonah nodded respectfully. He was a bit weary not even knowing what kind of music Kinga’s friend played, but anything had to be better than this. 

“Jonah,” she demanded. “Coffee. Now,” 

“Coming right up, your queenliness.” 

“Watch the sass, Heston.”

* * *

 

The next day Kinga marched in with a CD by her friend’s band The Skeleton Crew. The music was mostly nice jazz and ska, a lot of covers and rearrangements of obscure songs that was, kind of really awesome. They were catchy enough to want to hum along to, but the mostly lyric-less tracks avoided dreaded retail hell of the earworm forced rhymes on loop forever. 

“Mark my words Jonah Heston, we’re going to have a coffee franchise here one day and we’ll blow up the brand and sell it to Starbucks for a billion dollars!”

Jonah weakly gave her two thumbs up. Well at least one Forrester was capable of having a good idea...at least this once. But they really needed to watch that one...


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm leaving it up to interpretation whether "Joel's kids" are actual flesh and blood children or robots and just no one is questioning it in this universe.

 

Jonah sighed to himself. He had a massive report due tomorrow-in addition to his usual work on his thesis-and Clayton Forrester and his partner Frank had just marched in.

Joel’ s kids had just come back from school and were doing a semi decent impression of well behaved members of society-for once-all quietly drawing while sitting around one of the back tables. Mike was supposed to be by to pick them up to play babysitter until he and Joel swapped shifts, but traffic had been awful and he was running late.

“Jonah go to the back,” whispered Joel. “I’ll handle Bert and Ernie there.”

Jonah opened his mouth to protest, but heeded his boss’s instructions.  

“Hello, Boobie!” chirped Clayton.

Joel gave his usual sleepy smile. “What will be sirs?”

“Venti Iced Skinny Hazelnut Macchiato, Sugar-Free Syrup, Extra Shot, Light Ice, No Whip.”

“Sirs now you know that venti is a registered trademark of Starbucks Incorporated. I can however get you a _20 oz_ iced skinny hazelnut macchiato with-” Joel was noticeably having a hard time keeping the sarcasm out of his voice at “sugar free-syrup” but managed to shoulder on-”extra shot, light ice, no whip.”

“Very good Joel,” said Clayton. “Almost good enough to ignore the fact there are hmm...one, two, three...four of your dependents sitting there. I don’t run a babysitting service. Get them out of here.”

Frank, instead of ordering, had made his way over to kids.

“So what are you drawing there?” he asked them.

“Oh, oh,” said Tom. “See that’s a cloud shaped like a dinosaur, and it’s destroying the whole world. That’s an ice cream machine, and that’s the quidditch cup with my name on it because I won it. And that's Carl Marx destroying late capitalism. Late capitalism is the dollar signs.”

Crow’s eyes went sideways as he nervously flipped his over began sitting on his hands.

“Uh...you can’t see mine. It’s a secret and stuff...yeah.”

Frank flipped it over anyways.

“Aww Clay look, it’s cute! He drew you!”

Crow’s drawing was a cartoony render of Clayton with a squiggly line where his mouth should be indicating an angry face, and little fists for hands. There was a little arrow pointing to him that read “dickweed” on the other end and the picture was labeled “Clayton Forrester eats gym socks.”

“How...artistic…” managed Clayton.

“Ummm…” said Crow awkwardly. “I can change the art style next time if you don’t like it?”

Jonah noticed Mike quietly managed to sneak in and make his way to the back, having apparently caught at least the tail of that exchange. Forrester seemed to notice him as well.

“Mike, you’re not on the schedule until tonight,” said Forrester.

“Right well...I’m just here to pick these guys up. See you tonight if you pop by... _hurry_ ,” the last part was half whispered to Crow as the four scurried out with Mike. Jonah quickly emerged with Clayton’s order, having put it together quickly to avoid yet another complaint.

“Anyways Joel,” said Forrester doing his best to move on “I came by to discuss some things with you. First, Frank’s son Max will be starting here tomorrow. I expect you and Mike will be ready to begin training?”

“Of course, Sir.”

“Second, my daughter had a wonderful idea. Instead of trying to stomp the space theming out we should perhaps embrace it for branding.”

“Oh,” said Joel. “How?”

“Why Joel, I’m glad you asked,”

Frank, pulled out two jumpsuits from the canvas shopping bag he was holding. One red, one yellow. They were embellished with all sorts of branding details, and looked a bit beat up-as if someone along the way had decided to thrift them and salvage what they could. Amazingly given Jonah’s height, it looked like his might actually fit him. The same could not be said of Joel’s, which looked it might not even be full length on the tiny little four foot-something Crow.

Jonah sighed. Forget it being a long night, it was going to be a long however long this idea lasted. And whatever goodwill Kinga had built had just gone up in flames. But maybe being able to trade shifts with this Max kid from time to time wouldn't be too bad...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Huffpost for cluing me into the fact "Sugar Free Syrup" is a thing that people actually order.  
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/starbucks-drink-orders_n_3671496.html


End file.
